Spinal cord stimulation (“SCS”) based on implantable pulse generators has been used to treat chronic pain. The efficacy of spinal cord stimulation often decreases over time, likely due to a natural habituation response to the use of monotonically pulsed electrical fields and their regular induction of neural activity.
Recent art exists wherein electrical pulses from an implantable medical device are delivered with a time varying, including, for example, pseudo-random pulse frequency and/or pulse width. It has also been disclosed that stimulation can be applied in either tonic or burst patterns.
Arbitrary variation of the stimulation patterns, such as, for example, pseudo-random pulse frequency stimulation, burst stimulation, etc., has sub-optimal therapeutic effects.
In view of above, there is a need for an improved device and an improved method for spinal cord stimulation to treat pain.
The present invention is directed toward overcoming one or more of the above-identified problems.